


Like Kissing a Cactus

by Half_PintGladiator



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Frenemies, Murder-Suicide, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, vehement denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-03-13 23:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13581531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_PintGladiator/pseuds/Half_PintGladiator
Summary: A collection of Nisha/Scarlett oneshots. Expect violence, snark, and unrequited love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrashCandy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashCandy/gifts), [ForYeWhoArtLiterate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForYeWhoArtLiterate/gifts).



> Many of these have sat in my Google Drive account waiting. I'll likely pull the Nisha/Scarlett stuff from my Pandora's Box collection and post them here.

Nisha leaned back in her bunk at the Vacancy Hotel. The last available room was hers and she was more than content to revel in her victory, even if she cheated to get the room mostly to herself. The best part of bunking with Athena? She was almost never around.

Nisha settled back, carefully keeping herself dead center in the little cot should she roll out of the bed. It wasn’t a big drop to the ground, but enough that if she did fall, Athena would be in team mom mode… Again. It took a few minutes to find the best placement for her Echodevice so that it wouldn’t fall off the bed or wouldn’t dig into her skin. She called up the holo screen, flicking idly through her messages until she found one from her best friend slash biggest pain in the ass, Scarlett. She ran her tongue over her teeth, hesitating. The last message Scarlett sent her nearly crashed her Echo. The file she had sent had been massive and contained nothing but the words “you’ll never catch me” and a little winking smiley. 

From the lower bunk there was the soft hiss and thump of someone shifting on a tiny cot only to hit their head on a wall; Athena was awake. Nisha momentarily found herself wondering if the woman even slept. Refocusing on her Echo, she flinched and clicked on the message sent to her by Scarlett. 

The Echonet lagged a little while, the little cursor flashing for a long while until at last an image started to download. Okay, Scarlett had sent her a selfie. Nothing out of the ordinary, probably another taunt trying to lure her back to Pandora. At least that was her line of thought until the rest of the picture loaded. Scarlett had a few interesting tan lines. Her skin was slightly lighter where it had been covered by her usual captain’s garb. Nisha felt her eyebrows struggling to meet. Her mouth hung open. She blinked a few times just ensure she wasn’t hallucinating. The hook was there, the Monroe piercing, and the lip ring. The cyber eye was one and the same as was the tattoo on her neck. There was a little note obviously edited into the bottom of the image. “Hurry back, love, I’m tired of waiting.”

Nisha let out a muffled little choking cry, flinging her Echo aside in pure horror. She really didn’t give a damn if the stupid thing broke. She rolled over, facing the wall of the little motel, wishing for death or for brain bleach. She tugged the slightly scratchy blanket up over her head, trying to will the rush of blood from her face. 

“Uh, Nisha, is… everything okay?”

Freeing one hand from her blanket cocoon, Nisha flipped the bird at Athena. Nisha heard the telltale creak of worn bedsprings as Athena got up from her cot. Nisha huddled up tighter. 

“Uh… Wow.”

The thin mattress compressed just slightly. Nisha shifted until her palm closed on her Echo. She hit the delete command, muttering soft curses to herself. When she peeked out of her blanket bundle she found Athena staring at her.

“Friend of yours?”

“More like royal pain in my ass.”

Athena made a grunt of acknowledgment before climbing back into her bunk. There was blissful silence for a few minutes.

“I didn’t think you liked women.”

“Fuck you, Athena.” 

“Is that a statement or a promise? Just to, uh, clarify.”

“Go to hell.”

“Understood.”


	2. Like Kissing a Cactus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the title drop. Written in a hotel room during Tampa Bay Comicon.

Scarlett knew that loving Nisha was like tongue-kissing a stactus and hoping not to get shocked. Her love was a Russian roulette of toxicity and pain. Naturally, she found it addictive as all hell. 

Scarlett couldn’t quite place her thumb on what made her crave Nisha so badly. It probably explained why she kept finding her in bizarre circumstances. Well, more so than usual. 

\--

 

Scarlett shuffled out of the motel bathroom, steam billowing out behind her. The bathroom lacked ventilation-- and decently sized towels she realized. Water dripped from her hair onto her shoulders. She found Nisha lounging on the single flimsy bed, one leg dangling over the edge. Her hat lay on the only free pillow. Nisha’s fingers steadily worked the inner mechanisms of Law. Scarlett could smell the gun oil from the hallway. 

“Either you’re thinking about something or you have a plan.” Scarlett kept her eye on Nisha’s hands as she took a step forward.

“No plan, just thinking.”

“About what?”

She leaned a little closer, making sure to keep a slight distance between them. The last time she had gotten too close, she ended up with a badly bruised jaw and a chipped tooth. Nisha shifted on the bed, her duster still in place. Scarlett inhaled the old leather, sweat, and whiskey scent that seemed to pervade the air wherever Nisha went. She was just getting ready to walk away to grab her clothing when Nisha seized her by the towel, dragging her in. Nisha’s lips pressed hard against hers, knocking the wind out of her.

“About how damn good it would feel to rip that towel off of you.”

Scarlett grinned as she caught her breath. 

“I told you that you’d come around eventually.”

Nisha tugged the towel free. Scarlett shuddered under the touch of calloused fingers over her damp skin. 

\--

Scarlett woke in a daze. She stretched out, luxuriating in the post-coital afterglow. She blinked muzzily when she realized the bed was empty.

“Nisha?”

She started to come out of her stupor when there was no response. Panic took over. She scanned the room. Greed was missing. She threw off the covers, stumbling out of the bed. She checked her storage decks; empty. Even her hat was missing. 

“Nisha, you cheeky bitch.”

There was a message on her Echo. She pursed her lips as she clicked play.

“Too easy, Red. If I would’ve known that’s what it took to steal your stuff, I’d have done it sooner. Last night was fun, though. We should do it again.”

“I told you so, you pillock.”

She couldn’t be too mad. Scarlett grinned to herself as she connected with Mercer.

“Mercer, track my the contents of my storage deck for me. It seems my partnership with Miss Kadam has reached an end.”

The last laugh was on her when she found her clothing missing.

“Oh, you bitch.”


	3. Close Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foryewhoartliterate 's yearly birthday prompt. He usually is the one to encourage me to write the weird/funny prompts.

All things considered, there were only three things Scarlett wanted more than anything: booty, rum, and Nisha. Occasionally added to the mix was revenge, but mostly it was the same list. And she wasn’t very well known for her subtlety. She tried leering. She tried politely asking. She dropped hints. She even sent nude Echo photos. (Those went unviewed.) She even tried getting Nisha drunk. There just had to be a way to get her down to nothing. 

And then opportunity struck. 

Like any of their usual adventures, it all came down to a shootout. Scarlett couldn’t quite place her hook on what started, all she knew was that ammo was raining down on them and she wasn’t particularly thrilled. 

“Told you we shouldn’t have tried to negotiate.”

“I was trying a hand at diplomacy.”

“Don’t.. If we did it my way, these assholes wouldn’t be shooting as us.”

Scarlett ducked around the edge of the dumpster, taking a potshot at a bulking Bruiser. He went down after two well-placed rounds. She slid back into her hiding spot, watching Nisha charge at a group of psychos. Her arm arced, lobbing a grenade at the crowd’s center. It exploded midair.

“The fuck--”

Slag rained down over the alley, sending psychos scurrying for cover. Nisha’s hat dripped with goo. Scarlett watched with her jaw agape. Before long the street was strewn with corpses and Nisha was still. Nisha’s lips were twisted as a glob of slag plopped on the ground. She tossed her hat aside and shrugged out of her duster. 

“You-- you alright?”

“Fine.”

Scarlett holstered her pistol, slipping from her hiding spot. She pulled up her Echo, doing her best to ignore Nisha’s bared shoulders. There was an old starburst of a gunshot wound on her right shoulder. Beneath the vest she could faintly make out some definition to Nisha’s frame. 

“We-- erm, we need to head due east. Twenty paces and then there should be an x.” 

Nisha grunted. She had been in a mood for a few days. The slag only seemed to make it worse.

“You owe me a jacket and a hat.”

“With what we’re going to find, I can give you more than just that.” 

Nisha snorted. Her hands slid to her pockets, her stance a little less dignified and more petulant. Her vest rode up, exposing more of her dark skin. Scarlett had to force herself not to stare. 

“Err, the map says there’s an oasis nearby. You, er, you might want to wash the last of the slag off of you.”

“Hell no.” 

They trekked through the remnants of the mining town. Some buildings were more intact than others. There were bits and pieces of Dahl advertisements plastered on the few surviving walls. The first settlement. A prison camp, the source of the psychos. 

The sun beat down, scalding on their skin. Scarlett tucked her hat under her arm. She loosened her collar as sweat rolled down the back of her neck. The heat was stifling. Nisha’s vest clung to her soaked back. The vest was nearly translucent. Scarlett could have sworn the heat had gotten even more unbearable. 

They stopped in a tiny patch of shade. Nisha finished off the last of the canteen, shaking the last drops onto the sand. She wiped sweat from her brow. Scarlett huffed, her breath coming in short gasps.

“Fuck it. I think we need that oasis.”

Scarlett’s mouth went drier. She swallowed.

“Er, right. The treasure can wait.”

Scarlett caught Nisha studying her. She had one eyebrow lifted.

“You alright?”

“Bloody heat is getting to me.” 

Nisha’s face gave away no hints. 

Scarlett readjusted their waypoint, watching the sweat bead on her arm. She uttered a word of thanks to whatever watched over her. 

The oasis… Was far from perfect. Only a few scant trees, but the water was surprisingly clear. Rocks lined the edges of the water, providing decent cover. The sun still waged its war on their bodies. Scarlett threw down her hat at the first sight of water. She detached her hook, no longer caring about keeping an even keel. Her hook dropped to the ground when she caught sight of Nisha stripping off her vest and throwing it on the ground. A black crop top clung to her chest and shoulders. She tugged it off with a grunt. More tantalizing ochre skin, more scars. Scarlett didn’t notice that the hook fell on her foot. She was even more stunned to realize that Nisha had gone without a bra the entire time. 

Nisha left a trail of discarded clothing behind her. Scarlett just stared, gape mawed. Reality caught up with her, spurring her into stripping out of her shirt and pants. She left her prosthetic leg on until she reached the water’s edge.

“Don’t get any ideas, Red.”

Scarlett opened her mouth to comment. She shut it. She huffed. 

“Always a tease.”

“Touch me and I will kill you.”

“Well, that’s no fun.”

“You got an eyeful already, so shut the fuck up.”

Scarlett couldn’t argue that point. Admittedly, she was glad her Echoeye could record video. That one was going to be a favorite. 

They never did find the treasure. But Scarlett counted her video as good enough.


	4. Burnout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My yearly birthday gift to TrashCandy, a prompt of her request. This one is heavy. I took inspiration from two different songs to put it together. I highly recommend giving both a listen.

·······“When I lay down and die  
When I lay down and die  
At least I can say I loved”  
-In This Moment, 11:11

They always knew it would go out like this. They always knew one would go out in a blaze of glory, the other at the hands of the one they loved. It was a tragedy that was bound to play out, a tragedy from their first hello. It was one of those relationships. A bright spark, heated, that soon became a fiery burnout that ended in destruction. 

Scarlett had never intended for it to get so bad. It was only supposed to be a fling, not an all-consuming obsession. A toxic cycle of love and hate.

She sat in stunned silence. Her knees had given out shortly after Nisha collapsed. The crimson blossom above her heart was burned into Scarlett’s brain. She wanted to be sick. Wanted to sob. But was it a truly a bad thing if she did it to save herself? The rope burn on her throat stung, she still had trouble taking a full breath. 

How had it escalated? How did it get so out of hand? Why did she feel so bad for killing someone that had tried to kill her in cold blood? 

Her hook was stained with blood. While she had killed before, this one was the only death that hit her. The floodgates of emotion burst open. The stifled sniffle became a sob. 

Being with Nisha was like taking a hit of rid rock. Dangerous, addictive, mind-melting. She was so forceful, so domineering, so relentless. Scarlett walked off bruises, cuts, burns. It just felt too good. It wasn’t a healthy love. She practically worshiped Nisha. 

She sobbed into the dust. She had lost her goddess. Lost her way. Destroyed her own little slice of heaven. 

Scarlett tugged at the straps holding her hook in place. Her hand was slippery, shaky. She struggled with the buckles, blinded by tears. At last, she tugged her hook free and let it fall to the ground. Blood stained her stark white shirt. Her breath came in heaves. 

“I… love… you.” She choked on fresh tears, on guilt. 

The tears spilled onto Nisha’s dusty floor. Lynchwood was dead silent, not yet aware of the blood recently shed.

They always knew it was kill or be killed. They knew they were going to be the means of destruction for the other. It was a risk that they had taken. Taken for far too long. Their romance was a drug.   
\--

“As the moon becomes the night time  
You go viciously, quietly away  
I'm sitting in the bedroom where we used to sit and smoke cigarettes  
Now I'm watching  
Watching you die” - The Misfits, Saturday Night

Nisha lit a cigarette. She had already smoked a pack. Her fingers were stained with nicotine. Her breath sour and reeking of smoke and whiskey. She didn’t leave the bed. Just stared straight ahead, out her window. Staring, staring as though there was some kind of meaning. Some kind of answer on the horizon. 

She always knew it was a mistake. Business, pleasure, never. But Scarlett… Was a breath of fresh air, a sip of cool water in the desert. The satisfaction of an itch she couldn’t quite scratch. She wasn’t quite sure if she loved Scarlett or not. Or maybe she loved the idea of Scarlett. She never bothered to figure that out. She spun her gun’s barrel. Click. 

The cigarette burned through to the filter. She lit another, inhaling without tasting. The thrill had a way of wearing off far too fast. She couldn’t kick the habit. The whiskey didn’t taste of anything. She didn’t feel its burn. In all honesty, she didn’t feel much of anything. No pride, no regret, or at least she was sure she didn’t regret what she did. 

No, wait, maybe she did. Scarlett was all about the tease. The cat and mouse. The hunter and their prey. The stakes always escalated. It was… fun. The constant struggle, the fighting, the noise and heat. The anger. She spun her gun’s barrel. Click.

But now there was nothing. Nothing but Nisha drinking herself to death and the cold body laying in bed next to her. The body with clear thumb prints and finger lines from where Nisha strangled her. 

She had lost sight, lost control. It didn’t have to end that way. But the sick, sadistic part of her won. The part of her that thought like a bandit, acted like a bandit, was a bandit. She tried cool logic, she tried to assuage her guilt. It didn’t work.

Nisha spun Law’s barrel. Pulled back the hammer. Click. The chamber was empty. She took another drink. There was no challenge in her life any more. Jack was gone, the vault hunters left her for dead. She had lived on borrowed time on the fringe. And this time it took everything from her. 

She spun the barrel. She loved that stupid pirate after all. It hurt to cry. It hurt to live without the constant baiting. She drew the hammer. There was no click.


End file.
